


How do you carry sorrow in your heart?

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Self-Harm, mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 02:58:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14907033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: The Doctor discovers that Nyssa has been hurting a lot more than anyone knew. Knowing how she feels, he takes it upon himself to comfort the young Trakenite.





	How do you carry sorrow in your heart?

**Author's Note:**

> TW: EXPLICIT SELF-HARM AMD MENTIONS OF BLOOD
> 
> please if you for amy reason rum the risk of being triggered do not read this. I write a wide varity of perfectly happy famfics you can check out instead!
> 
> For human-nxture on Tumblr who wanted something with Nyssa and 5.

 

 

 

“Nyssa?” Carefully, The Doctor pushed open the bathroom door, glancing beyond it as he looked for the Trakenite.

 

 _Two and a half hours_ , that’s how long Tegan claimed that Nyssa had been hiding in the bathroom. At two in the morning. The Doctor swallowed roughly, praying that it all seemed worse than it actually was.

 

“Doctor?” The voice is broken and hurting, and The Doctor can feel the panic rising. “I’m sorry, I didn’t...I didn’t…” She is sobbing and from horrific experience The Doctor has the terrible feeling that he knows what she is doing.

 

As fast as his legs will carry, he round the door and run into the bathroom, already prepared to knock whatever sharp tool she might be using out of her hand as soon as he finds her.

 

Nyssa sit on the floor, shaking with sobs and panic and adrenaline, her naked arm covered in flowing blood that dropped down upon the blue tiled floor underneath her. The hem of her nightgown, once a lovely pale green, has already been discoloured by the liquid and The Doctor wants to throw up from the sight of it.

 

“Don’t move Nyssa, please. Don’t do anything.” The Doctor plead, in one swift motion stealing the small knife that she has used to carve in herself. It drips with her blood, and The Doctor gag.

 

“I’m sorry” Nyssa sobs, she too horrified as she watched The Doctor gagging, almost throwing up before taking the tool of her self-harm away from her. “I...I stole it at dinner. I don’t know why but I just did and then when Tegan went to sleep I…” Nyssa broke down. She was terrified, scared to think she had actual done such a thing to herself. How would she ever trust herself again? She hadn’t _wanted_ to do this. It just happened.

 

“No, no, no. It’s fine Nyssa, I am here, it’s going to be okay.” Quickly disregarding the knife, The Doctor crouched down next to Nyssa, pulling her into his arms. Blood is smearing on his pristine red and white cricket pants, but he doesn’t care too much as his priority is to calm down the upset girl. “Look, Nyssa, I am not angry. Scared, yes, but I imagine you are too. You can trust me, okay?” The Doctor explained, quiet and patient as he talked to Nyssa. The experiences he had earned from when Romana had suffered a similar problem sat deep in his mind, but it all came back like a reflex.

 

“I’m sorry Doctor; I didn’t...I couldn’t...it was a mistake” Nyssa cried, burying her head against The Doctor’s shoulder.

 

“Good. That’s good, Nyssa. It’s a very bad thing and I do not want you to do it again if you can avoid it.” pushing in his arm under Nyssa’s legs, he lifted her up and placed her on top the toilet. “Now I’ll need to take care of your injury. It’ll hurt and I’m very sorry.” He apologised beforehand, slowly starting to clean off the blood with some tissues. “Now, while I do this, I want you to tell me why you did it.”

 

Slowly, The Doctor pulls a wet tissue over the wound, studying the jagged cut it left behind. It was long, but shallow for the most part and only going deeper at one end. Luckily unlike with Romana, there was no sign of attempt at serious damage or anything signalling an attempted suicide.

 

“I had a nightmare. It...it was about father, and the man who stole his body.” Nyssa sobbed, using her good arm to soak up tears. “When I woke up I didn’t know what to do. My stepmom is dead, my father is dead and my whole world is dead. Why should I not be dead too?” Nyssa said, the shaking of her body increasing as she tries not think of all the pain that she had tried to hide for so long.

 

The Doctor watched Nyssa quietly. The question she posed was hardly a strange one - naturally it made one wonder, when all you ever knew died before your eyes. But in that case, why hadn’t Nyssa asked earlier? Her behaviour made it clear that it was not the first time she had suffered such nightmares, and yet she had never seeked consolation from The Doctor before.

 

“Have you ever thought of taking action to join them? For your own good, I need to know Nyssa.” The Doctor attempts to keep his voice soft and neutral. He watch the way Nyssa flinch as he applies the antiseptic, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe, she had been screaming for him all along but he hadn’t been listening.

 

Fearful and hesitant, Nyssa nodded. Her eyes were red cried and her lips nothing but a thin line across her face, and The Doctor's heart broke for what had become of the little girl he brought onboard his TARDIS. “When Adric and I first saw it. The dark space where the Traken Union should have been. I wanted to open the doors to the TARDIS and throw myself out into space. I’d been thinking about doing something since I lost my father on Logopolis.” Nyssa took a deep breath, biting her lip hard before she continued. “But then I decided I didn’t want to. That I couldn't.Tegan...Tegan lost her aunt, and she did not try to kill herself. Clearly there was no reason I should want to” Finishing her explanation, Nyssa is the calmest The Doctor has seen her since he entered the bathroom. It scare him, because there is no reason a teenage girl who just admitted to wanting to die should be this calm.

 

“Oh, Nyssa. No one else’s experience have anything to do with how _you_ feel.” Finishing tying the bandage around her arm, The Doctor lifted Nyssa off the toilet and into her lap, holding her tightly and slowly rocking back and forth. “Everyone cope differently, and some people are better at coping than others. Just because Tegan didn’t feel a certain way or expressed certain thoughts, it doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to.”

 

“I didn’t know” Nyssa whispered, her head with all it’s auburn curls cuddling his neck. Tears are already dripping down on his skin but he couldn’t care less. All The Doctor wanted was his Nyssa, safely held within his arms where she couldn’t hurt herself no more. “On Traken, everything was always the same. I was always happy there, with father and Kressida.” Letting out a strangled sob, Nyssa closed her eyes to hide from the pain and tears. The bandages weighed heavily where they sat wrapped around her arm, and she hated it. “Now everything is gone and everything hurt and I don’t know what you do. I only ever cried when mother died and even those feelings passed, but these feelings do not pass!”

 

Listening to her tearful tale, The Doctor held Nyssa even closer. He pressed the tiny body against his own, his grip firm as moved his body back and forth, gently rocking the young woman in his arms. How could he tell her to handle her feelings? He couldn't handle his own feelings. He still had dark nights where he missed everything he had lost so badly too, and he wished there was something to do about it. “Some things do not pass, Nyssa. Some things can only fade, and get easier with time. You never stop missing those who are gone, but you can come to terms with it.” The Doctor explained, comforting Nyssa as best he could.

 

He felt like a hypocrite, but it was what Nyssa needed, and The Doctor wanted to offer her everything his companions had tried to offer him over the years. “What is most important is that you never do what you just did ever again. If you feel lost or sad, you come to talk to us. To me, or Tegan, or Adric. You can talk to any one of us, and it is important that you do that if you feel any bad thoughts coming on. Okay?”

 

At first, Nyssa is so quiet that The Doctor has almost fell asleep. But then, suddenly, she spoke again. “But if it bad, then why did it feel so good...why does it help, Doctor?” Nyssa whispered finally, and The Doctor felt a chill run down his spine.

 

“It does not help, Nyssa. Don’t ever say that. It feels like it helps at first, but soon enough it will weigh as heavily as the original pain. Please do not think you are copung this way. Hurting yourself is not coping but talking and crying is” The Doctor explained, still rocking back and forth slowly.

 

“Do you know that? Have you done that?” Sitting up a little straighter, Nyssa pulled at his short sleeves, pulling down the sleeve of his pyjamas so she could see the thick white scars that encompassed his lower arm. “You have!” She exclaimed, her outcry somewhere halfway between excitement and horror.

 

“Schh, calm down” Pulling her back down into his knee, The Doctor made sure the sleeve of his shirt fell back down over his arm. “I am almost a thousand years old. I have done most mistakes that one can do. I _know_ that you don’t want to make this mistake ever again.” The Doctor explained, his voice quite and calm as talked to her. Nyssa was scared, and The Doctor wanted to assure her. He couldn’t afford to leave any doubt that would allow for her to ever injure herself again.

 

“I won’t!” Nyssa exclaimed quickly, sitting up in sudden distress. Tears were streaming down her face and her breathing was becoming quicker by the second. “I didn’t want to do it in the first place, I didn’t mean to take the knife, but I just...just couldn’t resist it. It hurts so much!” She wailed, terrified and in more emotional pain than she had the words to express.

 

“Shh, shh, it’s okay Nyssa” Immediately, The Doctor pulled the girl back down into his lap, stroking his hand along her dark curls as he tried his best to calm her down. “Its okay to cry, Nyssa. And I’m here to hold you. This is how you cope.” The Doctor whispered in her ear, rocking her back and forth as he tried to comfort her.

 

Finally, Nyssa started to drift off to sleep. With hiccuping sobs that faded into  quiet snores and salty tears drying on her cheeks, she finally found some peace in the early hours of the morning.

 

Sighing, happy to finally see his charge calming down after such a turbulent time. It hurt him that such feelings had been brewing inside of her brain long enough to cause such damaging effects, but he was glad to see that she was slowly starting to cope.

 

Standing up from the blood and dirt on the cold bathroom floor he carefullt carried her on into the bedroom.

 

Sitting on the bed opposite Nyssa’s was Tegan. Her face was terror stricken and as she heard the door open she jumped to her feet.

 

“Is Nyssa safe? You’ve been in there for hours, I almost went and woke Adric. I was scared.” Tegan glanced at him shyly, tears glitstening on cheeks as she watched The Doctor crossing the room. “Doctor please answer me!” She demanded, watching as he tucked in the woman Tegan loved in her bed. As he was fixing the covers, one pale arm fell out from underneath, and Tegan spotted the bandages fastened around it. There was already a small dark spot on them, and she understood what happened. “Oh no”

  


“It’s not as bad as it look Tegan. There is no reason for concern. She doesn’t need more stress right now.” The Doctor told Tegan, looking the woman straight in the eyes and willing her to calm down. “What she will need is companionship, understanding and patience. That being said, if you think she might be...doing anything, come find me.”

 

“I will!” Tegan nodded frantically, before sitting down at the edge of Nyssa’s bed. “Don’t worry Nyssa, I won’t let you hurt yourself. We’ll get through this, all of us.” Gently, she took the hand sticking out of the covers in hers, squeezing it. Behind her, The Doctor smiled.

 

“We’ll get through it” He agreed. “It’ll be better, eventually. It might take time, and a little help, but our Nyssa will pull through just fine.”

 

“Yes she will” Tegan nodded, smiling through the tears. “Good night Doctor. And, thank you. For helping Nyssa.”

 

“My pleasure” The Doctor smiled, leaning against the door for a moment before moving again. “Goodnight Tegan, goodnight Nyssa. I love you both”

 

As the door closed before her, Tegan nodded, smiling. “Love you too Doctor.”


End file.
